Always Recover
by EmeraldGrey22
Summary: How was it possible to know someone and have never met them before? How was it possible to want someone so strongly when you were sure they had never said more than two sentences to you, ever? Liam and Ruby's conversation at the gas station in Never Fade from Liam's perspective. In honor of In the Afterlight being just two weeks away! Cover image taken from tumblr user liamsdarlin.


"So you found me." I said, my voice coarse. She was standing in front of me. She had come to find me. I didn't know what to make of that beside the part where my heart exploded with repressed agony at the sight of her pale face. "I suppose I have Chubs to thank for that?"

My head swept through a wide array of emotions at once. The aching longing I felt every time I saw her, the crushing confusion that instantly followed, the drowning befuddlement, the spiking anger. I felt like my mind was being split into two, my heart rejoicing as it did every time I saw gaze directed towards me and my logic pulling me backwards with its sharp claws, its repeating mantra. You don't know her. You don't know her. I knew her.

She looked so conflicted, it actually pained me to see the expression on face. "I know-" she began before stopping abruptly. She licked her lips and continued. "I know you can take care of yourself. But we don't know anything about this town. We don't know who could come by, and the thought of you out here alone…"

_The thought of you out here alone…_

"_I wanted to be alone_." I said. How could I tell her that being in her presence physically exhausted me? That every waking minute threatened to pull my mind into two, like my brain was made of cracked pieces of china fitted together and it would take one word from her, her barest whisper, her barest touch for the whole structure to shatter into fragments. I was standing on the edge of madness, and in that moment I had needed to be away from her to hold on to the ledge of my sanity. "I just wanted…I just needed to clear my head. Away from them. Away from _you._"

She stared at my face and when she spoke, her voice sounded like she was talking to a wounded animal. "Look" she began, "I get it. You don't like me, but-"

"I don't like you?" The words were out of my mouth before I even tried to stop them. My voice was sharp and bordering on hysterical. I laughed, a flat, hollow sound that sounded agonized to my own ears. And then, with the laughs spilling out of my mouth, I wanted to cry. I felt like I was choking on air, my windpipe struggling to transport oxygen to my lungs. I turned around and shook my head, trying to shake away the moisture that was suddenly blurring my vision. "I don't like you?" I repeated, my voice threatening to give out. I know I only had a few words left. "I don't _like_ you?"

"Liam-" she started, her face painted with alarm as if she knew what I was about to say next.

And then the words were flowing out of my mouth because the strength it would take to hold them in would destroy me.

"I can't –I can't think about anything or anyone else." I whispered, my hand rising up to my hair, tugging at the strands in frustration. How could I tell her how I felt knowing how wrong it was? How my eyes wanted to memorize every inch of her face, how my hands yearned to touch her skin. My mouth was working way ahead of my mind. "I can't think straight when you're around. I can't sleep. It feels like I can't breathe—I just—"

My breath felt labored, but not from the aftereffects of my pneumonia, but from the invisible hands squeezing my trachea. My ribs had been replaced by steel bars which had locked themselves around my lungs in a suffocating embrace. I could feel my panic rising in my throat. Why was I feeling this way? What was wrong with me?

"Liam, please," she begged, her own face on the verge of panic. Rushed words were tumbling out of her mouth in hopes that I would comprehend one or another. "You're tired. You're barely over being sick. Let's just… Can we just go back to the others?"

"I love you." I choked out, turning round to face her, my mind barely registering how I was saying these words to a stranger. A face I didn't recognize but knew. A voice I had never heard but was engraved permanently onto my heart. Her echo was burnt into the very recesses of my soul and I had never even met her before. "I love you every second of every day, and I don't understand why, or how to make it stop-"

She froze in her place, looking at me with eyes that were large and vulnerable and I kept out sprouting words, just to try to justify this, justify this to her, justify it to myself. "I know it's wrong; I know it down to my damn bones. And I feel like I'm sick. I'm trying to be a good person, but I can't. I can't do it anymore."

She looked at me with something akin to pain in her expression, mouth opening an inch but unable to form words, hands held out in front of her as if trying to placate me or to offer me something she didn't have herself. I couldn't stop my heart from tearing out of my chest as she started to back away, eyes turned away from me. Maybe she was repulsed by me; maybe my face was too much for her to take.

"Look at me." I pleaded. I had to make her understand.

I stepped closer. She couldn't move back but even frozen in her place, she didn't object to the inches closing between us. Why did I feel as if the space between us was familiar? Like I had stood this close to her before, like I knew what it was like to breathe the air from her mouth. I could feel myself unraveling, the pain and confusion diffusing out of my body until I was sure she could breathe me in if she tried.

Almost against my intentions, I felt myself moving even closer until my head was lowered down to her shoulder. My heart was thudding from our close proximity, closing on itself with emotions I had never felt so strongly before. I could almost see my breath coursing through the layers of her fabric and warming her skin below. Her breath was hitched, like she had forgotten to inhale and the barest of tremors ran through her body. My chest felt constricted with all that I was feeling, all my senses sharpened just so I wouldn't miss the way a single strand of stray hair was plastered to her cheek, the way her bottom lip quivered ever so slightly, the way the soft brush of freckles dusted her nose, so diminished that I had never noticed them before.

And still, I wanted her closer. I hooked one finger inside the belt loop of her jeans and then my nose was touching the icy skin of her neck, traveling upwards, skimming the outline of her jaw. She squeezed her eyes shut as I rested my forehead against hers.

"Look at me." I begged. I was certain that if she raised her gaze towards mine, I would see the truth in her eyes, I would understand.

"Don't do this." Her voice was but a whisper.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," I breathed out. "I feel like…I feel like I'm losing my damn mind, like your face has been carved into my heart, and I don't remember when, and I don't understand why, but the scar is there, and I can't get it to heal. It won't go. I can't make it fade. And you won't even look at me."

The last part came out like an anguished whisper of words. How was it possible to know someone and had never met them before? How was it possible to want someone so strongly when you were sure they had never said more than two sentences to you, ever? But even then, I knew to the very core of my being, that there was an explanation for this. And that she knew what it was. Why else would she have come for me? Why else would she tilt her head to meet my lips when I had kissed her yesterday? Why else wouldn't she move away?

Her hands drifted towards me and clutched the front of my jacket, her fingers clenching tightly around the fabric, almost in desperation. "It's okay." she choked out. "We'll figure it out."

"I swear," I whispered as my mouth hovered near hers, a sudden memory bursting to the forefront of my mind. It was the image that had flashed across my eyes the first time I had seen her. Something akin to a dream, a flashback, something so surreal that it couldn't be possible let alone true. Her face beaming at me, toes curling into the white sand under her feet, green dress swishing around her hips. And then me, feeling like I couldn't possibly contain my joy; my sister, there and _alive_. And even Cole, who I would never admit I missed as much as I did.

"I swear, I swear…I swear we were on that beach, and I saw you wearing this light green dress, and we talked for hours. I had a life, and so did you, and we lived them together. It doesn't fit. That piece doesn't fit. Claire was there, and Cole promised we'd never been." I stopped, running a hand through my hair, the images in my mind transforming to something different. To how she looked sitting beside the fire the night before and I had almost felt like I couldn't breathe because I swore that I could trace the fire dancing around her face from memory. "But then…I see your face in the firelight, and I remember different fires, different smiles, different everything. I remember you in the green dress, and then it becomes a green uniform, and it doesn't make sense!"

For a moment, her face took on an expression of unbelievable shock before a different emotion clouded over: comprehension. I wanted to shake her, to force her to tell me what was going on. Because now I was sure that she knew.

She still refused to look at me but I saw the solitary tear that dripped down her eyelashes and then, another. My heart shriveled up in my chest with from her silent pain and my need to understand. Every time I thought but that memory –no, _dream_- I was filled with such inexplicable loss, like I really had lived that life, like it really had been snatched away from me by coldblooded hands. And just because she still wouldn't say anything, I continued to speak, hoping, praying, that some fated words would make her answer me.

"I'm… It's—it's like torture." My throat ached with suppressed emotion. "I think I'm losing it—I don't know what's happening, what happened, but I look at you, I look at you, and I love you so much. Not because of anything you've said, or done, or anything at all. I look at you, and I just love you, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what I would do for you. Please…you have to tell me…tell me I'm not crazy. Please just _look at me._"

Finally, her eyes rose up to meet mine and we both knew it was over.

My mouth pressed against hers hard, our lips driving apart from the force of it. And it was her immediate response that made no sense and yet all the sense in the world. My hands moved to hold her face, so bright and alive beneath my fingers; one of her hands curled around the front of my jacket. I pushed her backwards until she was pressed flush against the wall, my mind exploding into a jumble of emotions so sharp, I wouldn't have been able to breathe even if our kiss allowed it. There was no confusion in that moment, only our desire flushing together, bleeding into one.

I could feel her wanting to move away but I wouldn't allow it, not again, not when I knew that this was real, whatever it was.

"_No_." I whispered pressing my lips back against hers. And she didn't try to move away again, allowing herself to be overwhelmed by the fire burning between us. Her hands slid under my jacket to press me closer and for a moment, it was too much to take, that she could want me the way I wanted her, that she could even feel a sliver of what I did. A low groan escaped the back of my throat involuntarily, but the way she pressed herself against me even closer was worth the almost pathetic sound.

And then it changed. We pulled apart, gasping for breath, and when our lips met again, the kiss was slower and deeper and sweeter. I knew then, without the shadow of a doubt, that I had kissed her before. That we had shared the same heart stopping moments before this. I stopped thinking, letting myself get swept away by the sea of emotion slowly enveloping my chest, the sweet yet fiery sensation of her and me and us.

The soft tingle at the base of my skull. The memories rushing through my brain.

One minute I was kissing her, the other I was watching her screaming for help with blood spilling down her hands, I was holding her back as she thrashed around in my arms, I was watching my best friend bleed out in front of my eyes. The fear was jarringly sharp, like a bullet slicing through my chest and escaping through the other end before I could blink my eyes. The image changed. We were in a room, holding hands, whispering promises that we would never get to keep. Then a sudden blackness. And confusion. So much confusion. Me looking at her without recognition and her stony expression as she saw me leave the room. Why was I leaving? Another flurry of images. Her hair shining gold as she lay asleep in the passenger seat of Black Betty. The gentle pressure of her feet on my own. A hotel room and a pair of socks. Chubs, Zu, Ruby. Ruby, Ruby _Ruby_.

I was crashing backwards when the world fell back into focus. A work table behind me stumbled and a hundred little tools clattered to the ground with me between them, scrambling to get my bearings. Ruby was on the ground, gasping for breath as if she had just ran a marathon. She searched around herself wildly, looking for her gun like she needed something to hold on to. I was too stunned, too overwhelmed to do anything but reach her. She wrenched her arm away just as my fingers closed around it and tried to haul herself back to her feet but only succeeded in knocking out another shelf of hubcaps and collapsing back to the ground.

Finally, she gave up, squeezing herself back against the wall and drawing her knees to her chest. Trembling all over, she dug the heels of her hands against her eyes and I watched, momentarily stunned, not knowing what had happened but feeling the steady swell of panic rising up in my throat. This was Ruby. Why hadn't I recognized her before? What was wrong with me?

"Ruby." I gasped, realization slowly dawning upon me, seeping in through barriers of hazy memories.

She looked up from her hands searchingly, seeking some kind of confirmation on my face. Seeing her eyes upon me, the image seemed to replay itself over and over in my mind as if projected against the walls of my brain. Chubs slumped over Ruby's lap, blood seeping through both their clothes, his ragged breaths heard only through the gaps between her desperate sobs. My lungs constricted inside my ribcage, threatening to collapse from shock.

"Ruby, you…" I was struggling to speak. I could still see her bloody form hovering against my eyelids and I had to know that she was okay. That she was really, solidly, sitting in front of me, that her shaking shoulders weren't a figment of my imagination. I reached forwards and pulled her towards me, burying my face in her hair, breathing in her scent that was definitely _alive_. "We—that safe house—"

I halted as I struggled to remember the rest of what I had seen. There was a single moment of confusion before this other memory was abundantly clear too. Both of us were sitting together in the League safe house, defeated and caught, awaiting our fate. We were fantasizing of a future that could have been and I could remember feeling, even as we spoke, that everything was going to be alright. It was an inherent feeling, a surety which considering out situation, had no grounds or basis. And yet, I know that we were going to get out of this, that we were going to figure it out, as long as we were both together. And when she leaned to kiss me, I responded without a moment of hesitation. There was a sudden pull then and I had felt like invisible fingers were groping for my mind. I pulled back sharply but it was already done. After that, a single image: me looking at her with distrust burning deep inside my heart and her meeting my eyes only once before I was out the door.

"You did something—you—oh, God, _Chubs_!" I was yelling with panic, trapping her face between my hands. "Chubs was shot! They took him, and they took us—we were in that room, and you—what did you do? What did you _do_ to me? Why would I leave? Why would I leave without you?"

The blood drained from her face, from every inch of her skin. I was shaking so hard, it was a wonder I noticed at all. My eyes couldn't focus on her face, trying desperately to rid themselves of the image of the bullet hole that I could see so clearly embedded in Chubs' chest. Ruby ran her fingers through my hair, clutching it between her fingers and forcing me to meet her gaze. "He's okay. Liam! Chubs is okay; he's fine. We came to find you in Nashville, remember?"

I couldn't nod or reply because as seconds ticked away, the pieces were starting to arrange themselves, memories fitting together inside each other to form a picture that was sharp and clear. It only took me a few seconds to understand what had happened, what she had done to me. I shook my head in disbelief, my mouth forming the outline of words I couldn't speak out loud. She wouldn't have done it. Not to me. She wouldn't have betrayed me like this.

I stepped away from her and got up to my feet, still shaking. Even as the realization set in, the sight of Chubs' still, bloody form was hovering behind my eyes and I had to know that it had passed. I had to see, with my own two eyes, that he was okay. I had to know that everything that had happened since they had found me was real.

"I can explain." Her voice trembled. But I was already moving away with the sudden need to put some distance between us. I turned towards the car at the center of the damp garage and scooped up the backpack that I had been stalking with supplies when she had caught up to me. In a drunken state of panic, I rushed to the door. I needed the truth _dammit_, I just needed the truth.

"Wait!" she called after me. "_Lee!_"

I ran into the front office, grunting as I collided with a desk in my hurry.

I barely saw the figure standing on the other side of the room but I heard the explosive puncture of gunshots exploding through the air, once, twice. The sound jarred me to the ground, the glass wall behind me shattering into pieces, little shards raining down on me like raindrops.

For a moment, I was in a state of utter paralysis, frozen on my place on the ground. I barely remembered to breathe, gasping in a mouthful of air and lay slack for a few moments, panting from shock. The pieces of broken glass weighed on my back in a thick sheet; the floor in front of my face powdered with broken shards. Ruby ran over to me, positioning herself over my body and pointed her gun at my attacker, shoulder braced in anticipation of the shot. I could barely see my attacker but I saw the person dart behind a display of ChapSticks just as Ruby's bullets tore through the wall behind them. Even in my half dazed state, I couldn't help but notice how unlike my Ruby this girl looked, even if the memories had barely started to return to me. This girl was totally calm, shoulders hunched in flawless formation, at perfect ease with the gun in her hands. The Ruby I knew wouldn't have voluntarily stepped near a weapon.

My attacker -who I finally pinpointed as a hefty, gray haired woman- fired one more shot and then bolted. Ruby ducked on instinct, even though the shot was wide, and another window behind us exploded into tiny bits. I groaned as I felt as shard dig into my leg, my ears still ringing from all the firing. I felt Ruby's hand slip under my jacket, checking for blood, before hauling me into a sitting position. The lingering shock was making my limbs tremble something horrible and I had to press my back against something solid just so my spine wouldn't give up on me.

Ruby's shaking hands cupped my cheeks, eyes darting around my face, searching for damage. She pressed her lips against my forehead and then my cheek, and every negative thought I had been feeling just moments before momentarily evaporated into mist. "Are you okay?" she breathed out.

I nodded, pressing a hand over hers which was still lingering on my cheek. I rested my head against the cooler I was leaning on, my lungs still searching for air. "I'm okay."

That was all the confirmation she needed. From outside, I heard the engine of a car roar to life and Ruby was hauling herself to her feet, bolting out the front door in pursuit of the old woman. "Ruby!" I called, trying to latch on to her hand, but she was already ramming her shoulder into the swinging front door and disappearing outside.

It was no use. I shook my head and then forced my jelly legs to stand up, dusting my clothes thoroughly to rid myself of the powdered remains of the shattered glass. A small gash had opened up on my chin and a smaller one on the bridge if my nose. I tried not to wince from the sharp sting of the cuts and I attempted to wipe off the blood with the sleeve of my jacket. The door swung open again and Ruby came back inside.

For a moment, I just stood there taking in her appearance: League uniform, combat boots, dark hair braided down her back. Her veneer was solid, eyes cautious, fingers tight around her gun. I couldn't help compare this girl to the green-uniformed one in my memory. That girl had been blunter around the edges, open and inviting even if she darted out of reach every time someone tried to touch her. More images flooded my mind suddenly. Both of us facing each other; she was running her fingers through my hair subconsciously, until she realized what she was doing and tried to move away. Zu waving us goodbye; Ruby and me on either side of Chubs, all our expressions coated with sorrow.

It was finally apparent to me that there was no escaping this. That we needed to discuss whatever had happened to me. I needed to confront her betrayal and she needed to make me understand, however pointless either might prove to be.

Her steps were slow as she made her way to me and by the time she stood right in front of my face, there were tears running down her cheeks. I could feel her betrayal making a retreat up my throat, burning so sharply, I was afraid that I'd choke on it. She looked like she was waiting for an ultimatum. Like she was waiting for me to repay her with a knife straight up her heart.

And yet, there was a much too dominant part of me that wanted nothing more than to forgive her, to wipe the tears off of her cheeks, to let her press her face into my neck. And it was a sick feeling because she had played with my mind. She had meddled with the very essence of my being. Why? Why? Why? Why had she done it?

"Did…" I swallowed, pressing a fist against my mouth, struggling to get the words out my mouth as if saying them out loud might make them real. "Did you just not want to be with me?"

I might have been trying to hide it, but I couldn't pretend that even the possibility of my words being true cut me right to the core. Her face crumpled, her voice anguished when she said, "How could you think that?"

"What else am I supposed to think?" I demanded. My head was pounding, my mind a hazy warble of disfigured memories. "I feel like I've been…underwater. I can't get a thought straight, but I remember that. I remember the safe house. We were together; we were going to be okay."

"You know we weren't," she said. "It was the only thing I could do. It was the only way they'd let you go, and I couldn't let you stay."

I could feel my frustration growing with every word. _What about you?_ I wanted to scream. _I couldn't stay but what about you?_

I still could only remember fragments but what I did know was that things between her and me had never been this frustrating. It was like our minds had been strung together by an invisible tether, with our thoughts traveling along it back and forth, finding one another automatically. I had always felt like I could infiltrate her layers further than most had been able to. And it had been the same with her; she had always seen me through a lens that provided much too clear an insight to the workings of my mind. But now, it was different. The invisible tether between us had splintered, with only a thin piece of string still holding us together. Barely serving its purpose, but still there.

My eyes traced the lines along her face, waiting for a more elaborate explanation, waiting for an apology but I finally realized that none would be forthcoming. I let out a silent breath. "You're not even sorry."

"No," she said in a weak voice. She swallowed. "Because the only thing worse than being without you would have been watching them break you day after day, until you weren't yourself anymore, until they sent you on an Op that you didn't come back from."

The anger that rose up inside me surprised me with its vengeance. I realized that she had already gone through what she had been trying to save me from. She was so hard now, so rigid. Whereas her eyes had been trained to scout for danger, now they were trained to search for targets. I could almost imagine it. People with invisible faces pushing guns into her hands, training her to take others' lives, using her like another pawn in their plans. And she, following orders, with no free will to deny them, forced to go on missions she didn't know she would come back from. There was a bad taste on my tongue. She had already been forced to survive Thurmond and now she had had to go through this as well?

"Like they did to you?" My anger spilled into my words. It had been unfair of her to do this. We could've gone through it together. We could've survived it together. But she had taken the matters into her own hands, playing god just because she had a misguided notion that it would be better for me. "And now I just have to accept it? You took away my choice, Ruby—and for what? Because you thought I wasn't strong enough to survive being with the League?"

"Because I'm not strong enough to survive seeing you with the League!" she shouted. "Because I wanted you, after everything you went through, to have a chance to find your parents and live your life."

I almost growled with anger. Why couldn't she understand that it wouldn't matter if I found my parents if she wasn't under the safety of her own? Why couldn't she understand that I didn't _want_ to find my family if it would cost me her or Chubs?

"Dammit—I wanted _you!_" I clutched her arms, trying to make her understand. When I had been with her, for the first time since this whole mess had started, I had felt _happy_. I had felt like I'd be okay as long as she would be there by my side. But she had broken my trust, broken the very foundation of us, and wiped my brain like she had any right to. I had never been afraid of the grasping fingers of her mind because I was sure that they would never harm me intentionally. But I had been wrong. "More than anything! And you just…crashed through my mind and sealed everything away, like you had the right to, like_ I_ didn't need _you._ What kills me is that I trusted you—I was so sure you knew that. I would have been okay, because you would have been there with me!"

She looked at me with so much pain in my expression that I almost stopped. Almost.

"My head is so damn muddy, nothing is lining up." I took a step back, letting myself drop down in a crouch. The hodgepodge of my emotions weighed down on me like a physical being, forcing me to my knees. "Chubs was shot, and Zu is still out there, and East River burned, and—everything after that is like a nightmare. And you…you were with those people this whole time. Anything could have happened to you, and I would never have known. Do you know what that feels like?"

She dropped to the ground in front of me and she looked like how I felt: exhausted, empty. The tears clinging to her eyelids fell into her lap, one by one.

"I can't fix this." she said. Her voice had worn thin from dejection. "I know I've messed everything up, and there's no way back from this, okay? I do. But your life was worth more than what I wanted, and it was the only way I could think of to make sure you didn't get it in your head to come find me."

"Who says I would have?" I asked harshly, a pathetic attempt to inflict some of my pain back at her. But there was no real cruelty behind the words. We both know that I would have gone after her even if they were keeping her inside an underground cellar in China.

"I would have torn this whole damn country apart looking for you," she whispered. It was all I could do to not give in to the softness in her voice. "Maybe you really would have left. Maybe you wouldn't have come looking for me. Maybe I misread everything. But if you even felt a quarter of what I did…" Her words wavered. "I used to wonder, you know, all the time, if it was all because you felt sorry for me. Because you pitied me or were looking for another person to protect."

My words almost didn't make it past my tongue but when they did, they were the right ones. I wished that I could somehow make her see herself the way I saw her. I wish that I could make her understand how amazing she was, how resilient, how brave. "And you could never see another reason? It couldn't have been because I respected how hard you fought to survive? Because I saw how kind your heart was? Or that you were funny, and brave, and strong, and you made me feel like I was all of those things, too, even when I didn't deserve it?"

"Liam—"

"I don't know what to say or what to do here," I said, shaking my head. All my anger had finally dissipated into thin air. It left me feeling disorientated with nothing inside of me but my love for her, mixed with terrible emotions that didn't belong with my affections, but ones that wouldn't go away. "It feels like it never ended for me. Do you get that? I can't forget it ever happened. I can't hate you—I can't, not when I want to kiss you so damn badly." I ducked my head so see couldn't see that it wasn't just my voice that was breaking. My mind, my heart. "Why couldn't you have taken everything? Not just the memories but the feelings, too?"

She looked so innocently confused that I forced myself to elaborate even when I felt like I had already said enough. But words were still a liberty. Every syllable I spoke plucked away a few drops from the deluge of sadness inside my chest.

"It's terrifying—_terrifying_—to meet a stranger and feel something for her so intense it actually stops your heart, and you don't have _any_ basis for it. No context. The feelings are there, and it's like they're clawing at your chest, needing to get out. Even now, even when I just _look _at you, it feels like they're crushing me—with how much I want, and need, and love you. But you're not even sorry; you just expect that I'll be okay with the fact you threw your life away for mine."

Both of us were enveloped so deep inside our pocket of misery that I had forgotten that the world outside our little bubble even existed. That we were out at the edge of an open highway, exposed to the freezing cold and any passing eyes. We were brought back to reality with the sharp sound of a car engine, a blaring horn and headlights aimed straight at us. We jumped out of our trance and immediately, Ruby pulled me to my feet, a hand already extracting her gun from her waistband. It was strange how the tables had turned. A few months ago, I would have been the one pushing her behind my back.

The car rolled to a stop a few feet away, clearing tracks in the thick snow and it was only then that I realized that it Chub's SUV. Chubs jumped out of the driver's seat, leaving the engine running and stepped through the revolving door. "Oh, thank God. I saw you both on the ground and I thought you killed each other."

I took a deep breath so that my mind could get re-attuned to the world of the living. Ruby turned away and I saw her wipe off a few stray tears from her cheeks. I wished that she had given me some kind of response after my verbal-vomit but I was so glad to see Chubs there. Now I could get my answers without having my heart dangling from my sleeve.

Chubs took in a sharp breath when he took in the state of the room. I stepped forward, glancing back at Vida and Jude who were emerging form the car. I looked at Chubs. "Come inside for a sec. There's some food left we can take."

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><p><strong>Hello! I just recently red The Darkest Minds books and I absolutely loved them! Liam is such a sweetie, I just had to write this. Can't wait for In the Afterlight! Hopefully I'll be able to read it as soon as it gets out. If you wanna fangirl with me, feel free to PM! <strong>

**Psst, follow me on tumblr. My username is _asemblanceofart._ **


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